"It isn't too late yet," interrupted the Commodore. "I am so desirous of seeing some one run those rapids that I will be one of any two to carry your boat as far up the stream as you like, if you will run down in her."
"Agreed!" shouted the Vice, "but--" here he prudently admitted to himself the defects of the model of _his_ boat, "I wonder if the Cook wouldn't rather do it in the Cherub--you will find it far the easier to carry."
"Certainly," replied the Cook; "besides, she is far safer, faster and more manageable than your craft. She has no keel to catch upon a rock and tip one over, and her peculiar construction makes it impossible to start a leak, no matter how hard you may strike a stone with her."
The Cherub was promptly unloaded and carried up the stream half a mile, when the Cook seeing an almost unbroken line of rocks crossing the river, stopped her bearers. He then divested himself of all clothing except such as is technically denominated "gents underwear." The boat was placed in the water, heading up stream, and the Cook embarked, bracing his back against the amidship thwart, and his knees against the sides. The painter was thrown in, and he started to paddle out into the stream, but the current was in the habit of working its own sweet will upon floating bodies, and it promptly signified as much to the Cook by whirling him around so rapidly that the force of rotary motion almost deprived him of his scalp and whiskers--his helmet he had thoughtfully left ashore. Then the boat danced merrily along, saluting each inviting rock with a long soft caress, yet obeying the paddle with an alacrity of which no Chrysalid canoe could ever be capable. The time occupied by the trip seemed so great to the Cook, that a thousand years added or subtracted would have had no perceptible influence upon the total; according to the Commodore's pulse, however, (all watches having stopped) rather less than four minutes had elapsed since the start when the Cook paddled the Cherub up to the smooth beach below the rapid, and found that she had not shipped a drop of water, nor started, in striking the rocks, anything more important than varnish.
The four sat for a while longer under the shadow of the main gateway, and then proceeded on their way in order to reach a camping ground not in the immediate vicinity of any village.